The people in the Investigation Bureau lobby skipped the pretenses entirely.
The moment the loop restarted, a handful of lime powder was hurled at Yue Shi.
“Kill him!”
Before Yue Shi even opened his eyes, he backhanded Ling Xun, sending him flying.
Then came the incessant slaughter.
And then the loop restarted, returning to 9:30 AM in the Investigation Bureau lobby.
And then, Yue Shi went through many more iterations.
Iteration 24.
The instant Yue Shi opened his eyes, lime powder flew at his face. He backhanded Ling Xun as the man lunged at him from behind.
Ling Xun’s body slammed into the service counter, a crack snaking through the marble surface.
The others in the lobby swarmed forward as well, shouting for his blood with reckless abandon.
Yue Shi was growing tired of this.
His shadow exploded across the floor, and ravens surged from the darkness, diving at the attackers.
Ten seconds later, he was the only one left standing in the lobby.
He stepped out of the Investigation Bureau’s main entrance, and countless pedestrians and vehicles rushed toward him.
His shadow spread frantically, ravens filled the sky, and spatial slashes continuously fired from his fingertips. He didn't count how many people he killed, nor did he need to.
Half a minute later, not a single living soul remained on the street.
Everyone in his field of vision was dead, and blood ran like a river.
The ravens dispersed in all directions.
Suddenly, through the ears of a raven, Yue Shi heard gunshots from over a dozen streets away, accompanied by familiar shouts of “Kill him!”
He teleported there instantly. Bypassing several corpses and stepping over an overturned car, he found someone amidst a pile of shattered glass.
It was a man in his thirties, wearing tattered clothes, his face covered in blood and tears. He was huddled in the corner of a wall, clutching his head, his body trembling uncontrollably. “Don't kill me, please don't kill me... I'm just a normal transmigrator...”
Yue Shi stood before him, but the man didn't look up. He had no idea who was standing there; he only knew someone was approaching, and his shaking grew even more violent.
In the distance, hundreds of pedestrians were surging toward them. They brandished anything that could serve as a weapon, shouting the same slogan: “Kill him!”
Hearing the noise, the man curled up even tighter. “Don't kill me...”
The crowd drew closer, and Yue Shi turned around, radiating murderous intent.
Blood sprayed into the air like a red rain.
Seconds later, the ground was carpeted with corpses.
Yue Shi looked at the trembling man. “You, stand up and answer my questions!”
The man didn't stand. He remained huddled where he was, weeping bitterly, tears and snot mixing on his face.
“I was wrong, I was so wrong. I should never have entered the Bewitching Beauty Painting Workshop in the first place. If I hadn't boarded that boat, my companions wouldn't have died; if my companions hadn't died, I wouldn't have ended up in such a terrifying place...”
Yue Shi crouched down and stared at his face.
There was no pretense or performance on the man's face, only pure psychological collapse. His eyes were unfocused, his lips quivered, and his fingers had clawed bloody furrows into the wall.
He had gone insane.
But Yue Shi was still able to piece together some fragments of information from his words.
This man had entered the Bewitching Beauty Painting Workshop with a group of companions and, for some reason, had transmigrated to the current Amber City.
Then came the infinite loops.
In every loop, he was hunted by the entire city. He had been hacked to death, drawn and quartered, crushed by mud trucks, burned to a crisp...
He had experienced every kind of cruel death imaginable. Death was no escape; in the next loop, he would only suffer even more brutal torture, world without end.
A human being simply could not endure such a hell.
And so, he had snapped.
...
Iteration 25.
Yue Shi killed everyone in the Investigation Bureau lobby with practiced ease and then summoned Ghost.
The two of them discussed the current situation.
Ghost stated that he retained his memories of every loop and that they weren't reset by the restarts.
Yue Shi was puzzled about what exactly triggered the loop. Sometimes he wasn't even attacked—he had even wiped out the entire city—yet the loop would still restart for no apparent reason.
The two of them fell into deep thought.
Yue Shi said, “Pay more attention from now on. See if you can find any commonalities between the restarts.”
Ghost asked, “It's been over twenty times. You haven't noticed anything?”
Yue Shi replied, “I was feeling a bit nostalgic visiting familiar places, so I didn't focus on the details.”
Ghost nodded. “I see. It's rare to see you acting so human.”
...
With every loop restart, Yue Shi repeated the same actions.
Killing, killing, and more killing.
But the loops continued. No matter how many people he killed, everything would invariably go black, and he would find himself standing in the Investigation Bureau lobby again, hearing Ling Xun say from behind, “Yue Shi, why are you just standing there?”
However, Yue Shi wasn't completely oblivious to the loop mechanism. He had already begun to grasp a pattern.
...
Iteration 28.
Yue Shi didn't kill anyone. Instead, he conducted a test.
As soon as the loop began, he vanished from the Investigation Bureau lobby, found a secluded spot, activated his hidden state, and pulled out his phone to monitor the time.
This world was only as large as Amber City. Unable to leave the city, he could only wait quietly by the roadside.
The spring day was bright and beautiful; on the surface, everything appeared normal.
But after a short while, everything suddenly went black.
...
Iteration 29.
Yue Shi still didn't kill anyone. He simply chose a different location to observe and wait.
He opened his phone and used the stopwatch function to keep time.
The numbers on the stopwatch ticked away as birds chirped in the distance.
At 0 minutes and 47 seconds, a light breeze blew past.
At 3 minutes and 12 seconds, a petal fell from a begonia tree in the green belt.
At 5 minutes and 49 seconds, the loop had not yet restarted.
6 minutes and 45 seconds, 6 minutes and 46 seconds...
Everything went black.
...
Iteration 30.
Yue Shi ignored the people in the Investigation Bureau lobby who were shouting for his death and immediately pulled out his stopwatch to time the loop.
He summoned Ghost again to summarize the pattern.
Yue Shi said, “In every loop, all matter in this city returns to its initial state at 9:30 AM, but memories are not reset.”
“Based on my observations, it’s not just our memories that remain. The other people in the city also retain their memories of every loop.”
“Previously, I thought that being attacked triggered the restart, but in Iterations 28 and 29, I did nothing and avoided everyone in the city, yet the loop still restarted.”
“This proves that the loop has nothing to do with the people in this city, nor does it have anything to do with me. It’s more like a natural phenomenon—it restarts once the time is up.”
Ghost uttered a number: “6 minutes and 48 seconds.”
Yue Shi nodded. “Yes, 6 minutes and 48 seconds.”
“The starting point is 9:30:00 AM at the Amber City Investigation Bureau, and the ending point is 9:36:48 AM. No matter what happens, once that time is reached, the loop restarts instantly and returns to 9:30.”
“This is a world that only lasts six minutes!”
Rate on N.U.
